What is an earthquake: tsunami height, and statistics on risks of big earthquakes, near December solstice

The chance of a very large earthquake - and a tsunami of huge height causing a lot of destruction - on 26 December, adds up to a chance of 1 chance in 1494015, or 0.00007 per cent - that's the chance - that, of 12 huge earthquakes since 1900 - four happened on the very same day - 26 December.
See quoted link below for the source of this run at the stats. You'll also find two more of these technical responses to this hub from others, who - like me - looked at the data around 26 December. There's much talk of something which could happen on 26 December 2012.
I wondered why: I investigated and found some patterns.
Other folks who read this hub, joined in to talk about ancient myths, and calendar and astronomy and earthquake facts. Myths and legends can point to lost - or obscured - know-how. This hub looks for the facts behind the theory and the mysteries.
Odd data: For example around each 26 December, (19 - 28 December, for ten years, 2000 to 2011), earthquakes rotated generally, anticlockwise around the Pacific Basin.
Some science: The solar wind meets the the strongest geomagnetic field (in Universal Time)

• June at 16:30 UT; and
• December at 4:30.

This is a Universal Time effect [not a day/night effect] that happens because the magnetic poles are tipped towards the Sun at specific times:

1. - 16:30 Greenwich Mean Time=UT for the Northern pole and
2. - 4:30 for the Southern Pole).

Birthday, of sorts: It's a day of ancient significance. Near December 26, festivals, churches and temples and rituals celebrate a "rebirth" of the Sun; the Winter Solstice - the longest day in the Southern Hemisphere, the start of the Southern Summer and the shortest day in the north, the start of the Northern Winter.
When the Sun stands still: Astronomically, around December 26, that's time the Sun ceases its move to the South; and appears to stand still for 3 - 5 days. Next, o n the horizon day by day, the Sun starts to moves back, again, towards the South.
Can the Solstice trigger an earthquake? The summer and winter solstices mark the longest and shortest days of the year; these are opposite for North and South. A single earthquake can take millions of lives, destroy a city, trigger a global economic recession, and leave large areas uninhabitable. An earthquake can create a boom for construction companies and suppliers of emergency services. An earth quake can also provide a strategic window to occupy or influence another country.
Something makes the earths' surface move in sudden jumps: But it seems, its not the Earth. Not squashing plates.
New ideas on earthquakes: New ideas on earthquake prediction argue the earthquake trigger comes from outer space. Plates squash because of this space-force, it seems, not because of their own pressure.
The black hole at the center of the Galaxy: Some also cite another factor - alignment with the Galactic Center. For example:

1. On December 26, 2004 a giant earthquake shocked Indonesia with a tsunami. About 300,000 died.
2. December 26, 2003, almost to the hour, another earthquake in Iran, killed around 30,000

The earth spins on a tilt of around 23.44°: The Earth also wobbles - in a reliable way - as it spins. See this nice little movie of how tilt of the Earth relative to the Sun creates the seasons; (no tilt, no seasons). For movie, click here.
The day the Sun stood still: For six months - the Sun appears to move one way in the sky; and for another six months, the other. So, Solstice means the point at the end of the six months when the Sun "stops" and appears to move back the other way.
In one six months, the Sun appears to travel South; the other six months, North.

1. For about 3-5 days between each point the Sun "stops".
2. On about 26 December the Sun ends the stoppage and appears to resume a Northward path. This means the Earth has begun to wobble back, the other way.

To find the answer I asked; 'in what way does 26 December differ from other days?".
What's different: 26 December earthquakes happen 4 - 6 days after the solstice. This Latin word means 'the Sun stands still, or the "Sun stops" as sol - the sun and sistere, to stand still.
What makes the seasons: The December solstice happens because the earth spins, on an angle, as it rotates about the Sun.
Every 18 - 19 years the Moon "stands stills", too: Every 18.6 years, the rising or setting Moon reaches a
- northern extreme in rising and setting azimuth at summer solstice, and a
- southern extreme at winter solstice. These are called major standstills.
The last one was September 2, 2006. There were no very large earthquakes near this time.

Not a coincidence: The chance of a day - such as 26 December - to pop-up, four times, in a list of 12 events is about about one in a 1.5 million; 1 chance in 1494015 or 0.00007 per cent.

Statistical probability that an earthquake may take place on 26 December:

"The overall probability that a particular day appears four times in a list of 12 is about one in a 1.5 million, based on an assumption a major earthquake could occur any day in the year, or one in 365. The mathematics is simplified and an assumption is made on the first earthquake, but by all accounts these are strange events".

Ten things for Christmas: special things about 26 December: - aside from the fact that about about 500,000 people were killed...

1. date of maximum tilt of the Earth's equator, at the half-way of the 365.4 day year;
2. the end of the time of solar standstill; and
3. near the longest day of light, each year, in the Southern hemispshere - over 12 hours
4. when the Sun rises exactly in the East and sets exactly in the West;
5. when the Sun appears to rise in the same place for about four days - called the standstill week;
6. big earthquakes tend to happen four days after the standstill - December 26; and
7. after the standstill, the Sun appears to rise again, each day closer, towards the North;
8. 26 December marks the birthday celebration of a host of Gods; Jesus Christ, Osiris, Mithras, Buddha; and
9. ancient temples align doors and whole buildings to the Solstice.

Other factors at work? Astrologers reported for the December 26 Sumatra 2004 earthquake

1. Full Moon opposite the Galactic Centre; and
2. Sun and Pluto conjunct the Galactic Centre.

Coincidence again or weird theory: Full moon was opposite the Galactic Center ( at 6° Sagittarius) at the time of the first January 2010 Haiti earthquake, three days before another alignment of Sun, Earth and Moon, the Annular Solar Eclipse on New Moon day.
January 15, 2010, Earth closest to the Sun: January 15, 2010 also has special features; for example in Australia, recurrent catastrophic bushfires and electricity blackouts happen on 15 January. On that day its Perehelion ; the day in the year when the Earth comes closest to the Sun. So its hotter.
Have I answered my question: "Why do big earthquakes happen near the end of December?" No; I've given some ideas. But there's something happening here and I hope more people will work on it. For some new data click here.

For example: the book Nonlinear Dynamics of the Lithosphere and Earthquake Prediction claims an 80-90 success rate in forecasting of large earthquakes.Drs Varotsos, Alexopoulos and Nomicos, members of a group which have sought to use electric-field measurements between electrodes buried in the earth to predict earthquakes.
The earthquake prediction nut will soon crack, I think; and some force from space - what we now call spaceweather, will prove the earthquake trigger. Because earthquakes come in sequences.

Temples of Indonesia, Cambodia and India use astronomy proportions and create astronomical records in stone; these temples record and replicate astronomical knowledge; the temple forms a map of the mathematics of the cosmos, right down the the number of bricks, steps and doors

Examples of Solstice temple alignment:

1. Chichen Itza for example - abandoned n 1400 AD has northwest and southwest corners oriented toward the rising point of the sun at the summer solstice and its setting point at the winter solstice.
2. The Cambodia Angkor Wat great Hindu temple has a subsidiary temple at Prasat Kuk Bangro, 5 km away, aligned to the winter solstice. This was built around 1050-1135 AD.

Mandalas as architectural drawings: Even whole cities - like old Jaipur - apply Ideas and diagrams - mandalas - once thought metaphysical and religious, now appear as architectural instructions for temple-building and knowledge-keeping.
Temples mark equinoxes and solstices: For example the vastupurusa-mandala instructs a kind of Feng Shui how-to construction of residences, palaces, temples and even whole cities .
Two sides face the Solstice, other two the equinox: The temple should face the rising Sun in the east; this location was set at the Solstice by the temple advisor, the Vastu Pundit.

Space all works like clock-work: Time to call in the Vedic astrologers and Sanskrit speakers. It seems we need a kind of Vastu Pundit to to look at the stars and predict earthquakes. Some call these ideas pseudoscience.To warn us when bursts of energy may come from outer space. As space all works like clock-work, we can expect to find more interest in repeating patterns as the next December 26 arrives; the much-talked about end times date at the end of 2012.

I liked this analytic comment from Scott Gruber so much I have embedded it in this hub. I have also looked for and made a table for the average number of earthquakes per year
What year bring more earthquakes? USGS says "we have exceeded the long-term average number of major earthquakes only 8 times, in 1976, 1990, 1995, 1999, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011".
Scott's comment: "your calculations are a bit off": He wrote:

There are, on average, 150 earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or above every year.

1. This means the odds of one happening on any given day are 41%;
2. The odds of one happening on the same date again are .41 x .41, or 16.8%;.
3. A third occurrence on the same date is 6.9%; and so.
4. odds of a fourth earthquake on the same date are 2.8%.

Scott on 7+ earthquake stats:

1. If we take the magnitude up to 7.0 or above, the odds drop a bit.
   There is only a 4.3% chance an earthquake of this magnitude will happen somewhere in the world on any given day.
   Two earthquakes on that same date have .18% odds,
   three have .007% odds, and four have .0003% odds.

"The problem with your analysis is that you're using an arbitrary measure. Odds of the same date showing up on a list of 12 events. This seems to me like a clustering illusion - drawing the bullseye on the wall after you've thrown the darts".

How to test the theory: "If you're going to propose the testable hypothesis that 12/26 is more earthquake-prone than other days, this should be pretty easy to analyze.
Look at the data for all earthquakes of all magnitudes by day over a long period and see if there is a greater than 50% correlation with the solstice. Whatever magic force you claim is causing these earthquakes should cause a spike in smaller quakes as well". See another statistical approach, below.

A researcher on Hubpages, Retrojoe has responded to this item. Here what Retrojoe said.
Agreement: " I am in full agreement that there is something to damaging earthquakes occurring more frequently around the winter solstice than at other times of the year..
238 earthquakes analysed: "Here's what I found after scanning through 238 earthquakes with at least 800 deaths each that are in my database from the year 1700 to the present: There were:

1. 14 such quakes (with a magnitude of at least 6.2 on the Richter scale);
2. within a date range of from 12/23 to 12/30.

Statistical analysis: "Since, with such a pool of data, one would normally expect no more than 5.2 quakes on average to occur within such a 8 day window, the 14 quakes that happened represent a 2.69 times greater likelihood than from chance alone (in my estimation). Looks significant to me".

Retrojoe then wrote again, the next day"; I just narrowed the window down to just quakes in my database for the dates 12/23-12/26 and got even better results:

1. out of a total of 238 quakes being considered the expected average in a four day period is 2.61 quakes.
2. the actual amount of quakes that occurred during that date range was 10 quakes; so
3. that is 3.84 times greater than due to chance alone.

With results like that it would be hard to say something unusual isn't going on".